Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has told the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain to stay out of Tibet over alleged cruelty to animals, an animal rights group said on Thursday.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has announced that he is taking semi-retirement. The future course of the Tibetan movement will be decided by the 'elected government under Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche', said the Buddhist spiritual leader.
Was the visit connected to China's recent actions vis-a-vis Pakistan?
Terming it as an important meeting, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy, Lodi Gyari, said the Tibetan leader would speak about Tibet, and as two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, he and the President are likely to discuss global concerns.
'If, as appears to be the case, India is on way to 'mending fences' with China, and China is equally desirous to 'reset' the relationship, this could be a self-reflexive moment in India's positioning vis-a-vis not just the Dalai Lama, but also the Tibetan issue and China as a whole,' points out China expert Alka Acharya.
US President Barack Obama will meet Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House on February 18, objections from China notwithstanding.
Richard Gere is in Bihar to attend a five-day religious discourse on Buddhism by the Dalai Lama.
China on Wednesday expressed its firm opposition to foreign leaders' contact with the Dalai Lama, days after a key aide to Barack Obama said the US President would be ready to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader "at an appropriate time."
Indians are "lazy" and must work hard like the Chinese, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said in New Delhi on Friday. "As a critic, I feel sometimes people in India are lazy. You should work hard. Look at the Chinese, they work very hard," he said. In a lighter vein, he also said, "Wherever the Chinese go, they make China towns. However, nowhere in the world there are any 'India towns'."
China has condemned Prime Minister John Howard's plan to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, and has called on future visits to be banned.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama is a non-vegetarian. The disclosure came from Member of Parliament Dr Karan Singh, while arguing that non-vegetarian food does not violate the religious beliefs.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Saturday that he would re-evaluate when he is about 90 whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not and termed China's efforts to meddle in the matter as inappropriate.
Tawang, after all, only became a part of India on February 6, 1951, when a Naga officer, Major Robert Kathing, leading a platoon of Assam Rifles, was welcomed by cheering Monpas after he crossed the Sela Pass and ordered the people of Tawang to stop paying taxes to the Tibetans. Until then, Tibetan officials had controlled the Tawang tract, a huge chunk of territory protruding south towards Tezpur.
'His presence in Tawang is a silent reiteration that the McMahon Line was and is the border between Tibet and India,' says Claude Arpi.
The Dalai Lama has revealed he fears that Chinese agents have trained Tibetan women for a mission to kill him.
The Dalai Lama is right to reach out to ordinary Chinese; in the long run, it could only pay rich dividends, but the results won't probably be seen in the immediate future, says Claude Arpi.
Braving the winter chill, thousands of Tibetans and locals lined up along the roads leading to the Tawang monastery on Sunday and gave a rousing reception to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who arrived in town on a four-day visit.
After getting a royal welcome in Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang, the Dalai Lama took on China, saying it is usual for the Chinese to oppose his visits everywhere.
Thousands of supporters of the Dalai Lama shouted and "spit" on a group of demonstrators belonging to a Buddhist sect which alleges that the Tibetan spiritual leader is persecuting its members, forcing the police to intervene to prevent clashes between them.
India has been taking an "over-cautious" view on Tibet, the Dalai Lama today said while seeking New Delhi's help to resolve the vexed issue.
"On the issue of contact between the Central government and the Dalai Lama, the Central government's attitude is serious, honest and sincere," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a briefing in Beijing. He was reacting to a query on remarks by the Tibetan government in exile that there had not been progress in the first fence-mending talks between representatives of the government and the envoys of Dalai Lama held in the southern Chinese city of Shenzen.
China has rubbished the Dalai Lama's accusation that Beijing itself could be behind the recent violence in Tibet, saying it showed his guilty conscience. The Communist nation charged the Tibetan spiritual leader with "trying to pass the buck using rumours and cheating". "It only shows the sense of guilty conscience in his deep heart so that he is trying to pass the buck using rumours and cheating," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has urged China to talk to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, while acknowledging that there were human rights abuses in the recent violence in Lhasa. "We recognise China's sovereignty over Tibet. But it is difficult, and it's complex, and it certainly will be one of the matters, which I will be raising when I visit China myself at the end of this visit abroad," he said.
Spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Saturday led an inter-faith prayer meeting at Rajghat in remembrance of Tibetans who lost their lives and injured during their recent protest against China. Religious leaders from various sects joined Dalai Lama in the mass prayer which was held at the Mahatama Gandhi's memorial at around 8 am amid tight security.
Addressing the 'Message Proclamation of the 80th annual pilgrimage of the Sree Narayana Mutt' at Sivagiri in Varkala in Kerala, the Dalai Lama said peace would not come just by resolutions passed by the United Nations but through compassion and understanding of the views and concerns of other individuals.
The Dalai Lama on Tuesday showered praise on revolutionary Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, but lashed out at subsequent governments in Beijing for allegedly subjugating Tibetans.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper became the first Canadian premier to hold formal talks with the Dalai Lama when he met the Tibetan spiritual leader in his office, ignoring China's warning that it could affect Sino-Canadian relations.
"We have received information that after the Olympics 1 million Chinese are going to settle in the autonomous region of Tibet," the Dalai Lama said in an interview published in the Guardian on Saturday. He said: "There is every danger of Tibet becoming a truly Han Chinese land and Tibetans becoming an insignificant minority. Then the very basis of the idea of autonomy becomes meaningless."
"In terms of our views on conversations with the Chinese and representatives of the Dalai Lama, we've been calling for that for a long time. We certainly support the statements, as the president said, that the Chinese government has said that they're willing to have this meeting take place," State Department's Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said at a briefing.
Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said that the Tibetan spiritual leader's visit to the border state is completely religious and no political motive should be ascribed to it.
Not wanting to annoy China, Japanese Prime Minister Yokio Hatoyama has politely refused to meet with the visiting Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama citing his "tight" schedule.
Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Monday said corruption is a kind of violence and yoga guru Ramdev's movement is helpful in reminding people and leaders of the country that something should be done to weed it out.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Wednesday attended the four-day congregation of Buddhist monks and scholars that triggered a diplomatic row between India and China and led to the postponement of border talks, but refused to make any political comments.
This is a major policy shift. Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama escaped to political asylum in India, the Communist Party has insisted that the Tibetans are a happy lot. The communist apparatchiks have passed off growing public protests, like the 40 self-immolations by Tibetans in the last four years, as the work of a few malcontents, instigated from "foreign countries" by the "Dalai Clique".
Referring to allegations that it was "silly for China" not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd".
He told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC: "He (Chairman Mao) appears to me as a father and he himself considered me as a son. (We had) very good relations. The only problem was that on many occasions, when official dinners were held, Chairman Mao always used to bring me to his side".
The invitation to the "Dalai Lama for activity in the disputed areas between China and India will only damage peace stability of the border areas as well as the bilateral relationship between China and India", Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang.
The 81-year-old Dalai Lama inaugurated an international seminar on Buddhism on March 17 in Rajgir in Bihar's Nalanda district, about 100 km from the capital Patna.
"We accept India as a land of Buddha," he said, adding that he had no regret for not getting an opportunity to return to Tibet.